by Tess Evans
‘You’re as bull-headed as each other.’ Amy sighed. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this just to spite Linsey.’
‘It has nothing to do with spite,’ Moss retorted. ‘Haven’t you heard of integrity?’
‘Yes,’ said Amy. ‘But pragmatism makes the world go round. Be reasonable, Moss. Linsey has plenty of money. She’s made a fortune since she started working for that bank of hers.’
Amy’s objections still ringing in her ears, Moss looked at Finn defiantly. ‘I was studying singing at the Melba Con. I dropped out a few months ago.’
‘Didn’t you like it?’
‘I loved it. But I’d stopped talking to Linsey and she was supporting me, so you see, I couldn’t go on. I’ve deferred. We’ll see what happens.’ Oh God, she thought, I hope he doesn’t think I’m here after money. ‘Grandma Kathy left me some money,’ she added quickly. ‘I’ve got enough to keep me going.’
It hadn’t occurred to Finn that she might be after money. He generally believed the best of people; more often than not, he was right. But he was interested in Moss’s refusal of Linsey’s money.
‘You must’ve felt quite strongly to stop speaking to her. I can see why you couldn’t go on taking her money, though.’
‘Can you? Everyone else says I’m crazy.’
‘Perhaps. But your craziness might come from the not-speaking in the first place. I don’t know anything about that, of course.’ Finn spoke cautiously, wary of involvement. His agreement with her mothers had already been breached, and he didn’t want the sort of entanglement that his intervention could provoke. He felt he was on shaky ground morally, perhaps even legally.
Anyone else would have asked why we weren’t speaking, Moss thought. Asked why I had to drop out of my course. She could have continued without Linsey’s money, working her way through university as so many students did. But in her anger and confusion over the circumstances of her conception, Moss punished herself as well as Linsey, excising from her life not only a loved mother but the music that brought them both so much pleasure.
Each slightly embarrassed by their revelations, Moss and Finn fussed over who would wash the mugs and empty the teapot.
‘Can you go on with your story, Finn?’ his daughter asked, almost plaintively, hoping to take her mind off her own painful thoughts. ‘It must have been a very hard time for you.’
Finn wiped the sink with exaggerated care. ‘I have to work this afternoon and I’ll be out between six and eight. Perhaps we can talk over dinner? I don’t know what you’d like to eat . . .’
Moss had a healthy young appetite and had eaten nothing but bread and tea in the last twenty-four hours. Although she was not an enthusiastic cook, to avoid the prospect of more Vegemite on toast, she offered to prepare the evening meal. ‘My treat,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ll hunt about in the cupboard and buy what else I need. I think I saw some shops last night.’
‘Yeah. Just around the corner from the bus stop where you got off. Or you could take the short-cut across the footy ground.’ He gestured in the direction of the backyard. ‘There should be some onions and spinach in the vegie garden if you need them.’
After a quick lunch, Finn disappeared down the hall to his room. Ever resourceful, Moss found some pasta and a bottle of bolognaise sauce in the cupboard and fetched some onions from the garden. This seemed to be a good basis for an easy meal. She put on her japara and took a shopping bag from behind the door. Instead of retracing last night’s route, she set out across the footy ground. The ragged grass around the perimeter wet the hem of her jeans, but the day was sunny and she enjoyed the feeling of purpose. There were two small shelters just inside the fence and a low brick building with cyclone wire over the windows, above which a sign enigmatically proclaimed HOME OF THE OPPORTUNITY KNOCKERS. Bizarre name for a football team, she thought. She crossed a bridge over the creek, which flowed sluggishly after the night’s rain. She could just make out the original sign, HALFWAY BRIDGE, smothered as it was under layers of graffiti.
Turning onto the main road, she looked down its length across the open landscape. A city girl, she could see no redeeming feature in its flat, unremitting yellowness. Apart from a few apologetic eucalypts, there was no green to define and control this amorphous space. Most of the houses bordering the road had sparse gardens that the rain had brought momentarily to life, but there was a mirage-like quality to the water that lay in puddles on fatally compacted soil. Only the geraniums seemed to do well in these conditions. Her Grandma Kathy had grown prim geraniums in pots, but these shrubs sprawled, wanton and leggy, like careless old whores grown tired of life.
In contrast, the little public gardens at the end of town (the OPPORTUNITY WAR MEMORIAL GARDENS, she read on the wrought-iron entrance gate) were pleasantly fresh and green. Moss looked in surprise at the well-tended lawn and garden beds. They occupy enchanted space, she thought. It was as though all the life and energy of the town were vested in this small oasis.
Moss noticed that most of the businesses in the main street provided a somewhat eclectic range of goods and services. There was a service station that also sold groceries (and offered electrical and lawnmower repairs), a small supermarket, a craft-cum-coffee shop, a newsagency-cum-post office/bank, a general store, and a rather fine old corner pub that boasted vacant accommodation. Across the road was a purveyor of fine antiques and bric-a-–brac (also dry-cleaning). This had once been the Commonwealth Bank—the name was still etched deeply into the stone. Next door was Marisa’s Boutique— ladies and children’s discount fashions—a fish ’n’ chip shop, a pharmacy and the Country Women’s Association Op Shop (Open Wednesdays, the sign said. Please leave only usable goods in the container. No electrical ). Despite this last plea, an old TV set had been dumped outside the shop, along with a rusty bike and a bulging green garbage bag. Peering at the window, Moss made out a faint gold outline advertising its former life as a barber shop and private men’s club. Three other shops were boarded up, a forlorn testament to the slow dying of a country community.
With time on her hands, she wandered on past the shops to the Mechanics Institute (opened in 1891 by the Hon. Charles Sandilands, OBE). Now, she read on the fading notice–board, it served as a meeting hall and, once a month, as a cinema. It would never again welcome young men, farmers’ sons, doggedly seeking an education after a hard day’s labour. Moss could almost see them, with their bullet heads and overalls and grubby hands, sweating over their books with a faith in learning that was almost sublime; the great-grandfathers, perhaps, of today’s urban lawyers and doctors and accountants. At the far end of the street, on a little rise, stood a small stone Anglican church with modest gothic arches and yellow diamond-paned windows. It was there, she surmised, that many of those boys were christened and married. And buried, too, most likely, under one of the crumbling headstones in the unpretentious little churchyard. Not all of them, of course. There were those whose graves were in Gallipoli or the Somme and whose names were engraved on the cenotaph in the gardens. The sign outside St Saviour’s Church offered services for Anglicans at ten am on the first three Sundays of the month, Catholics at six thirty pm on the first and third Saturday nights, and a Uniting service at ten am on the last Sunday of the month. Moss grinned when she saw this. Even the churches saw the need to diversify.
She turned back and went into the supermarket. There was only one other customer, a woman, who smiled and said good afternoon, further offering the observation that it was nice to see a bit of rain. Moss nodded and moved on quickly. She wasn’t quite ready to expose herself to the eyes of a small town. She loaded her trolley with mince, some salad vegetables, and parmesan in a plastic tub. There was a small delicatessen and bakery at the back of the store where she bought some fresh rolls.
‘We don’t have much call for fancy breads.’ The saleswoman obviously disapproved of her request for rye. She relented a little when Moss asked for an apple-and-rhubarb pie and two 64 vegetable pasties.
‘
Nice to see a bit of rain, isn’t it?’ Then: ‘Come in on the bus, did you?’
‘Yes. Good—the rain. Yes. The bus.’ She hurried away to the checkout where a girl—SHARON, her nametag said—was painting her nails alternately black and green, studiously avoiding eye contact.
‘Can you wait till this dries?’
‘What? Yes. I guess I can.’ Moss waited while the girl blew on her nails and flapped her fingers in the air.
‘There. Finished. Nice to see a bit of rain, isn’t it?’
Moss agreed once more that indeed it was, and after being wished a nice day, escaped back into the street. The only other pedestrian was a dog, an elderly kelpie, who trotted along behind her.
‘Hello, boy. Nice to see a bit of rain, isn’t it?’
The dog wagged its tail. It was a country dog. It couldn’t have agreed more.
Meanwhile, Finn was having difficulty concentrating on his work. This hadn’t happened for some time: his self-discipline was usually fierce. But today all he could see, all he could think about, was a girl lying grotesquely on the road where she’d been flung like an old coat. Random details from the chaos still lay in wait for him. He felt the sweat running down his back. Heard the strangely unsynchronised sirens. Smelt the heat rising from the bitumen. Grieved for the abandoned shoe. Most persistent of all, he saw a sheet and, encroaching on its whiteness, a red anemone, a monstrous, spreading bloom; life leaking away on a suburban street on an ordinary Tuesday night.
He took a folder from his desk drawer and turned it over in his hands. It contained some newspaper cuttings and a copy of the coroner’s finding. Moss could read these. It would be easier for both of them. No-one had blamed him, but he knew that he wasn’t fully in control that night. His alcohol test was just below the legal limit, and they couldn’t test for drugs in those days, so he escaped the serious offence of culpable driving. The police had considered the lesser charge of dangerous driving causing death, but all the witnesses agreed that he couldn’t have seen her in time to stop, even though there was some speculation (but no evidence) that he may have been speeding. He was speeding. He knew that. Not much over the limit, but enough to affect his braking time. He was also drug-affected, but no-one knew that either. In the end, he walked free. Shamefully free.
Finn looked again at the coroner’s finding. Because the dead girl could not be identified, there had been a full inquest. There was evidence from the police officer in charge, the doctor who pronounced life extinct, a social worker, a street prostitute called Brenda, and several eye witnesses. There was no-one representing the dead girl’s family. Her face was too badly injured for photographs to be of any use and, despite the best facial recognition techniques, no-one came forward to claim her. There was no-one to mourn, no-one to be outraged on her behalf.
The deceased was known as Amber-Lee but her surname is unknown. A local prostitute, Brenda Watson, was accompanying her at the time of the accident, Finn read. Although he could have recited it by heart.
‘She called herself Amber-Lee,’ Brenda had told the inquest. ‘I don’t think it was her real name—just a street name. She thought it sounded, you know, sexy. Like a film star or something.’
‘I couldn’t stop,’ the truck driver had said, his face stricken. ‘She just landed in front of me. There was nothing I could do.’
‘I remember the name Amber-Lee. She came to the Ward Street Shelter once,’ said the social worker. ‘We knew she was on the game and probably underage, but we can’t keep track of them all. We just don’t have the resources.’ She shrugged. ‘We can only help those willing to be helped.’
All this had been translated into the dispassionate language of the coroner’s office. Now its very blandness accused Finn anew.
There had been photographs. They were not in the folder, but were fatally imprinted on his memory. The cause of death was recorded as catastrophic head injuries. The post-mortem also found traces of old bruises and a partially healed broken rib. There are needle tracks evident on her left arm, the medical report continued. She was injecting, probably heroin, although there is no evidence of this in the toxicology report. Her veins were still viable. There is evidence of early stage gonorrhoea. Her estimated age is between fourteen and sixteen.
Michael cried as he gave evidence. But no-one 67 asked if he’d been taking drugs so no-one ever knew. After the accident, his family and friends had drawn a circle around him, offering help and advice. His first reaction had been to accept his culpability and take whatever punishment was his due. On hearing this, his mother was distraught.
‘Why on earth would you want to do that? It won’t bring the girl back. You always react so extravagantly when something goes wrong. Vic, speak to him.’
His father leaned forward. ‘Look, son. They said she just ran out in front of the car. It’s a terrible thing, but how can you blame yourself for that? Let me get Stephen to advise you. He deals with cases like this all the time.’
Looking back now, Finn could see that his parents had always adroitly handled any problems that arose in his life. He was the long-awaited only child of older parents, and, grateful for their late blessing, they sheltered and indulged him. While another child might have become spoiled and selfish, Michael was loving, funny, popular and clever. Things rarely went wrong for him, but when they did, he relied on his parents to deal with them and secured their support by the deployment of tears, anger, charm—whatever he could see might work at the time. He’d carried this approach over to adulthood, when the generally smooth progress of his life had ensured that he needed it only rarely. So it was that when, at the age of thirty-eight, he was faced with something fundamental, he had no resources with which to deal with it. By the time Moss heard his story, he had carried his guilt for so long that it was grafted to his skin. It was part of who he was.
Is that why he chose to reveal his secret to Moss? he wondered. She was claiming him as a father and he felt he owed her the truth. If she chose to reject him, he would accept this rejection as delayed justice. He had always regretted allowing his mother to dissuade him from confessing. If he’d been punished at the time, maybe his life would be different now. He would have done his penance and been absolved. He shook his head wearily. Who knows? He had acted as he did, and there were consequences, one of which might be the loss of his newly found daughter. That would be no more than he deserved. Of course, on another level, one he preferred not to acknowledge, he was resisting entanglement. He had never wanted a child. He had made that quite clear to her mothers from the outset. It was too late to change now. He simply didn’t have the emotional capacity to deal with the needs of an adult daughter.
He heard Moss return from her shopping expedition, but stayed in his room. At five to six, he left the house, telling her that he’d return at eight. He left the folder on the table and wrote her name on the cover with the ubiquitous magic marker. She watched him from the window and didn’t pick up the folder until he was out of sight.
Moss didn’t read everything. Some of the details were technical so she skipped to those sections that dealt with the story, the everyday tragedy of the girl they called Amber-Lee. She didn’t even rate a newspaper headline. Two column inches in the Age reported that a prostitute known only as AmberLee was hit by a car and run over by a truck in Pryor St, Churchill. Police are still trying to identify her. It is believed that Amber-Lee was not her real name. Anyone with information et cetera, et cetera . . .
Moss tried to imagine what would lead a young girl to leave home for such a brutal life. Who was she? What was her real name? she wondered, in a manner uncharacteristic of either the casual Amy or the impatient Linsey. Her habit of introspection and the quality of empathy had stolen in with her father’s genes.
The brief was prepared by Senior Constable Graham Patterson of Fitzroy police station. It began with a detailed report of the accident and witness statements and recorded that Michael’s blood alcohol level was within the legal limit. What engrossed he
r, however, was the effort the senior constable had made to identify the girl. She didn’t match any missing person’s report, although there was some fruitless investigation regarding an Adelaide schoolgirl who’d disappeared earlier that year. Furthermore, Amber-Lee’s head injuries precluded the use of dental records. Very little was gleaned from the interview with the prostitute Brenda. It was noted that she shared a flat with the deceased, knew her only as AmberLee, and that her attempts at facial imaging were ‘unhelpful’. There were very few of Amber-Lee’s belongings in the flat and some suspicion that Brenda had appropriated them. The usually helpful Prostitutes’ Collective couldn’t place the girl and suggested talking to the Ward Street Shelter, where they were told that a girl calling herself Amber-Lee had come in there one day, but left suddenly while she was waiting to be seen. The busy social worker had a very general sense of what she looked like, and the facial image from her description was nothing like the one produced by Brenda’s.
Moss suddenly realised that the sun had gone down and the fire was burning low. She looked at her watch. It was after seven, and with a muttered shit! she jumped to her feet, stoked the fire and began to prepare the meal. At five to eight she heard the gate open and close, but the footsteps stopped short of the door. She pulled back the curtains. Was that Finn waiting in the shadows? Was he ashamed to face her? She opened the door and called to him in what she hoped was a reassuring tone, ‘Come on in, Finn. I’m ready to dish up.’
Finn put a finger to his lips and remained standing in the garden for a few moments more. He peered at his watch a couple of times and then came in, taking off his coat and glancing quickly at the table where the folder had been. His eyes followed hers to the sideboard where it now lay.
‘I read it,’ she said. ‘We can talk about it later, if you like, but let’s have something to eat first.’
Finn went to wash his hands and returned to find a large pot of pasta, with salad and bread, ready for serving. Moss would have liked a glass of wine but was reluctant to open the bottle she’d found in the cupboard. She poured them each a glass of water instead. Her father had good reason not to drink and she wasn’t going to be the one to tempt him.
